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What do you turn to when a standard notebook just won't cut it in the performance department? Well you could try lug a desktop around with you... or you could turn to a business-class workstation notebook. Today we take a quick look at the new Lenovo ThinkPad W520, equipped with an Intel Core i7-2920XM Extreme Edition processor, an NVIDIA Quadro 2000M GPU, 8GB of RAM, and two of our Intel SSD 510s running in RAID0.

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If you've got the Vertex 3 240GB you can throw in an AS SSD test as well, haven't tried it yet on my W510, will do that as soon as I see your result.

Can't test the Vertex 3 for a while. We had to ship it back to OCZ for a firmware update and not sure of the ETA on its return. Basically its getting the shipping consumer firmware and our particular revision couldn't be flashed through the normal process.

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No tweaks on this system thus far. I am using a "cleaned" version of the OS image that came with the notebook. So various manufacturer software uninstalled to minimize popups and whatnot.

And yea I greatly dislike RAID outside of my server environment. Well RAID0 that is. With SSDs being "super fast" already, most real-world gains are minimal. I prefer going the data redundancy route if I go RAID, so on a laptop is pretty much AHCI for me.

What is the part number of the UltraBay adapter you currently have? I have two models here that turned out to be the shorter version. They still work and are held in place fine, but they have a huge gap in the bay.

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I have to make a fast decision today: Do I get a 240GB Intel 510 or a OCZ Vertex 3 for my Thinkpad W520?

I am a web publisher and "Microsoft Expression Web 4" seems to do a lot of read/write to the drive - mostly small files I believe.

If you were in my shoes and had to make a snap decision, what would you decide?

The Vertex 3 is faster across the board, including small file writes. The main reason to go with the Intel is reliability. Just depends whether top speed or reliability is more important to you. They're both very good drives, for different reasons.

I would use the Rescue and Recovery software built into the Lenovo systems. It handles the transition at the file system level instead of the block level, so alignment issues shouldn't be a concern. If you need some help on that front let me know. Kevin (another guy here) is practically an expert with that stuff.

I would use the Rescue and Recovery software built into the Lenovo systems. It handles the transition at the file system level instead of the block level, so alignment issues shouldn't be a concern. If you need some help on that front let me know. Kevin (another guy here) is practically an expert with that stuff.

Thanks!

And for the appliactions and data, if I use the Windows 7 Disk Image Tool to restore the image to the SSD drive, will it transfer the default 63 sectors offset of the HDD?

Or will it preserve the 64kb (or a multiple of 64kb) offset recommended for SSD drives?

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I was referring to the Windows 7 Disk Image Tool (the Acronis link is where I learned about the 63 vs 64 offset)

Does the Lenovo "Rescue and Recovery" restore both System and Data? (If so, I would not need the Windows 7 Disk Image Tool)

Correct, using R&R it will restore a fully functional system from a backup medium of your chosing. For the longest time I would make weekly backup updates to my network, so when I reinstalled the entire OS I would only need a boot disc to load R&R and a LAN cable.

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Well, funny me..i made recovery dvd's and happened to be one dvd just wouldn't work..so kinda screwed the backup..but i wasn't planning on using it anyways as i like to start from scratch. So far this laptop is awesome..runs all the games i normally play great! So far my biggest gripe is I don't think Lenovo has the System Update working yet, at least as far my laptop sees nothing..so driver installation is all manual. Have a few things missing but main problem is bluetooth. I installed the hotkey drivers but nothing is being shown on screen(such as volume or screen brightness) I do have access connections installed so it should be working for wireless/bluebooth switches. Any ideas? Other stuff in device manager that needs drivers is: Base System Device, PCI serial port, PCI Simple Communications Controller, Unknown device().